So I just got done with a little coding frenzy here at migraineheartache. I’ve been reading all these awesome books on DHTML, Javascript, and the Document Object Model (DOM). In turn, I’ve been adding some pretty cool features to the site. If you look to your right, you’ll see a nifty little quip entitled “LiveSearch.” The lone simple little textbox performs like its name suggests. Each time a letter or phrase is entered in the field, a drop down list appears with all the entries that match that criteria (sorted from newest to oldest). Go ahead and try it out, begin typing the word “google” into the field. With each new letter you’ll see the list get shorter and shorter eventually showing you a list that you can use the arrow-keys or your mouse to navigate. Now, before anyone jumps down my neck, many sites have implemented this type of feature; and yes - I looked at ALOT of them while building it. In no way do I claim full credit or anything crazy like that. But I am proud of my three-and-a-half days of tweaking and debugging. I’ve got the sourcecode if anyone is interested, its a mix of javascript and php/mySQL.

I’ve also been working on perfecting the use of this iTunes recently played script for WordPress. I did my best to write a little animation script so that when you click on the cover art images (see bottom right of this page) the track’s info slides out and displays below the image. For some reason, I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around the correct way to do it. So, I opted to use a pre-built library that I found over at script.aculo.us. Those guys are doing some great stuff over there.

Also, I’ve been working on a new application for windows called “iTunerXP.” Its a small little utility app that will let you automate all those rigorous tasks you encounter while organzing and managing songs in iTunes. It will also do things like update your blog with your currently playing track, post playlists as a blog entry, and plenty of other useful little features. I’ll also be releasing a tiny library of javascripts that you can simply double-click on to run. Those will do simple autmated things like “Make All Track Names In My Library Title Case” and “Remove ‘.mp3′ from all Track Names” - stuff like that. iTunerXP will be able to do them as well but I thought some might like an easier interface to those types of features. Just in case anyone didn’t know, just as you can use AppleScript to do things like that in Mac OS X, you can use javascript to automate things in iTunes for Windows. Which brings me to my next point: I will eventually be releasing iTunerXP as a Windows app and another program simply dubbed “iTuner” as my first public Mac OS X app. It will be written in Cocoa and will surely be a great learning expierience for me. My plan is to release all my future programs on both platforms. I’ve simply fallen in love with the development oppurtunities on the mac, anyone interested should do their best to check it out.

That’s about all for now, as soon as I make some progress I’ll post about it.

-a

P.S. - I’m such a nerd…